


Interim

by squire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental subspace excursion, Aftercare, Angst, Exes to Lovers, Exile, Feels, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Hux needs several, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Long-haired Kylo, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-TRoS, haircare, rough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: Death came and went, and could come around again any day. Kylo just didn't see a point in cutting his hair.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 128
Kudos: 287





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I watched the Medieval Times SNL skit with Adam, and apparently THIS is what I took away from it.
> 
> EDIT 19/02/2020: [Translation into Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9031487) is now available thanks to the amazing nefastidies!!! Thank you so much!

They stare at each other from the opposite sides of the cantina in the least unsavoury harbor on Talita, each just as surprised as the other. 

If they were any closer, close enough to to talk, perhaps they would've said it. Both at the same time.  _ I thought you were…  _

But there's a crowd, a sea of hairdos and headpieces, helmets and lekkus, horns and carapaces between them, all rowdy and thirsty and mingling. Blurring and insignificant, paling away from that single point of focus. Unfamiliar clothes, different hair, but eyes just as sharp. Just as cold, like the touch of a ghost.

Kylo drops his gaze first. Stares at his glass, at what’s left in the bottle in front of him. Swallows dry before he flicks his eyes back up, something in his chest clenching at the thought that this might be just a fleeting hallucination. Hoping. Fearing. That it isn’t. That it is. 

He doesn’t remember much from  _ that time _ but this moment always stood out clearly, after all. The shaky blue glow of the holocall. Nameless officer, eager for recognition. 

_ Supreme leader, sir. Allegiant General Pryde wishes to inform you that the spy has been found. It was General Hux. _

_ Was.  _ Past tense. Pitch black fury surged up in Kylo's mind and crushed the stupid pimp's windpipe across hundreds of parsecs but even that wasn't enough to swallow up the glimpse of another color in front of his eyes. The color of regret. For years, it had the color of flaming red hair. 

The red is gone now. The man staring unwaveringly across the room at him is dirty blonde. Even his eyebrows are bleached to match. His cheekbones stand out starker. But Kylo would recognise that nose, mouth, shape of jaw anytime. Anywhere. 

Even in the cheapest, dirtiest canteen out here in the Wild Space. Even in the afterlife. 

Before Kylo can decide between ignoring Hux like the rest of the canteen or bolting out of here, the man is already making way through the crowd, picking up a bottle from the bar along the way and sliding right into the free seat at Kylo's little Leave Me Alone table. 

"Well, look at you." The initial shock melted away, replaced by sneering amusement. He clinks his bottle against Kylo's glass in a gesture of easy familiarity. Something they never had,  _ before.  _

"What's the name these days?" 

"Kane Saro." After two years, the name comes to Kylo's tongue easily. Doesn't feel any better than Ben or Kylo did but at least doesn't weigh as much. 

"I like it," Hux says. He smirks, perfectly aware that he didn't give his name in turn. "That cargo transport company, Saro and Moon, that's you?" 

"Moon had a freighter and needed a pilot," Kylo shrugs. Doesn't mention Nar Shaddaa and how Moon had attempted a big deal there only to get shipped back in several pieces. Kylo told him not to do it but that vain prick didn't listen. And Kylo got to keep the ship. Win-win. He kept the company name, too. More solid. Less questions. Kamino system has lively trade and decent traffic. It keeps the roof over his head and the open tab at the bar.

Hux has the bottle in his hand but doesn't drink. In the few moments Kylo dares to look up, he isn't even meeting his gaze. He keeps staring, distracted and obviously fascinated, not at Kylo's face or the notable absence of a scar on it, but at his… hair? 

Ah. Kylo almost never thinks about it, one of the reasons why it got so long. And looking different comes in handy. 

He shakes the long matted locks forward, obscuring most of his face out of habit. Notices the minute twitch of muscles in the hand that holds the bottle, an instinctual clench that used to signal irritation. He wonders if it still does. If he still can read Hux like he used to, like a favorite bedtime story. 

Or like a list of sins. Chronological or alphabetical, Hux would surely let him choose. 

“Why, are you a client?” he counters with a question of his own. Hux snorts. 

“I need a place to stay for awhile,” he says bluntly. “The job I came here for kind of fell through, and the one I hoped to pick up here isn’t exactly panning out either. You know how it is.”

Kylo doesn’t. He doesn’t know what Hux is doing these days. How he calls himself. How did he survive in the first place. So many questions, and so little courage to actually ask them.

Not to mention that Kylo isn’t even sure how  _ he _ did survive, himself. Everything pointed towards the opposite. At one point, he could feel himself becoming one with the Force. Maybe those  _ all of the Jedi _ that Rey talked about joined forces and kicked him collectively out, back to existence. Kylo resents calling it a life. It doesn’t feel like one. It’s like… living on borrowed time. On the universe’s benevolence. It’s wretched. 

_ I have a room _ , Kylo’s mouth almost says for him. He catches himself just in time. 

“There’s an inn uptown that takes republican credits,” he says instead. The rest of Talita prefers Kaminoan currency, or the good old barter. 

“Oh  _ Kane _ ,” and the smile Hux’s drawls his name on looks almost pitying. “I’m afraid I can only pay in silence.” 

He taps his fingers against the table. “A few days in your  _ gracious _ hospitality… to ensure that the New Republic doesn’t get anonymously tipped off to the whereabouts of the unlamented but very much alive Kylo Ren.”

“I could drag you down with me,” Kylo points out. Doesn’t point out the obvious - that he could ensure Hux’s permanent silence, just as soon as they step out of here, or at any point during those next few days. But Hux is probably prepared for that. A man who survived an execution shot point blank to his chest must be. And the more…. _ subtle _ ways of snuffing out a life… Kylo can’t use them. Not since he cut himself from the Force. 

“You could try,” Hux agrees lightly. “But remember that General Hux was on the winning side of the war when he died.”

As if Kylo could ever forget. There was a time when Hux was on  _ his _ side. However briefly. But then Kylo lost him, and then he lost the war. 

They leave the canteen side by side, Kylo pulling his hair back with a loose tie to better fit it under the hood to keep away from the neverending drizzle. He might be imagining it but Hux next to him lets out an exasperated huff. 

“What?”

Hux is funny with his disapproval, as if Kylo still rankled his sense for regulation. Maybe Kylo is funny for showing he somehow cares what Hux thinks. 

“You look beastly.”

His hair was one of the things Kylo stopped caring about, after Exegol. No longer a padawan to keep it short, no longer wearing a helmet to keep it tightly braided. He let it grow. A proof, of sorts, that he wasn’t dead. 

“And your point?”

“Never mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates bi-weekly (or faster, depends on my back pain).


	2. Chapter 2

The sheets on the bed in Moon’s old bedroom are clean, and it says a lot about how Hux must have changed when he only sniffs the mattress once and doesn’t comment. Lowered standards, Kylo guesses. Just something that comes with exile. 

The apartment slash transport company headquarters is in an all-right part of the harbor. Not the safest part where the comings-and-goings could be noticed by the council police but not the part where one would fear to walk around after nightfall. Moon, bless his soul, splurged on two separate bedrooms. Kylo’s faces the street and the incessant pitter-patter of rain against the window panes. Moon’s, now unceremoniously taken over by Hux, has a single oriel window over the backyard. An unkempt bush of vines shelters it from most of the rain but also blocks almost all of the sparse daylight. 

The first thing Hux does in his new abode, after careful inspecting of the view, is spreading his leather bag full of tools and bits of electronics on the bed and crouching over at the window with sensors and fuse wires. 

“Are you… booby trapping the window?”

Hux spits out the wire he held in his mouth and rolls his eyes. “I’m surprised you haven’t done so already.”

There’s no mirror anywhere around the place but Kylo doesn’t need it to know how little people would recognise him now. He’s not careless, he’s just fallen so deep under the radar that paranoia feels like a waste of energy. 

“Why exactly did you need a place to stay?” 

The dots connect in Kylo’s mind when he notices the quality of Hux’s tools and gadgets, of his clothes, the desktop holo terminal that Hux sets up at the foot of his bed. Hux is not short on credits, he could afford a place after his own taste. Somewhere with better heating and room service. But also with a guest registry, and with it, the questions. 

“It’s just for a few days,” Hux says, vague, concentrated on calibrating the pressure sensors. He’s deflecting, and Kylo feels a spark of excitement, something he hasn’t felt in many months. He didn't know he'd miss this, getting one over Hux. 

“You’re a wanted man, aren’t you. How much would I get if I tipped off the local bounty hunters?”

Hux moves fast, faster than Kylo remembers he could, but he still manages to catch Hux’s arm by the wrist, his grip trembling with the strain but still immobilizing. When he swallows, he can feel the sharp blade of the screwdriver in Hux's fist just brushing the underside of his Adam's apple. 

"You owe me," Hux hisses. There's no uncertainty in his eyes, they’re as ever, sharp and hard with conviction. So much will to survive, to live. Kylo feels a stab of envy. 

"You owe me so much," Hux repeats. Shifts his fingers just so and the blade retreats into the handle. Belatedly Kylo realises that with just a slightly different shift of muscles, the blade could also shoot to twice its length, neatly skewering his skull. He lets go of Hux's wrist, fingertips tingling with the echo of blood  _ thump-thumping  _ in those paper thin veins. 

"You can bring your debts to Kylo Ren's grave," he tries to dismiss the tension. There is actually a grave, on Chandrilla. An empty slab. Rey had it erected for people wishing to mourn Ben Solo. And for people who wanted something to spit on when remembering Kylo Ren. There's infinitely more of those in the Galaxy. 

"But fine," he amends. "After this, we're even."

Hux nods, his eyes still narrowed. Still standing close. Kylo expects the smell of bleach but Hux’s hair smells… nice. Clean. The skin over his cheekbones is sun-kissed. Littered with freckles. 

Then Hux scrunches his nose and sniffs. 

"Ugh. Do you wash your hair at all?" 

The abrupt change of topic throws Kylo off. Of course he does. He just forgets more often than not. Why does Hux care? Sure, he liked to grab Kylo's hair when they were… But that was another time. Another life. 

"You should touch up on your roots. The General is showing," he parries back. From this close, he actually can spot the hint of long-missed red. 

Hux recoils and crouches back down to finish work on his security. He shoots Kylo one last warning glare. 

"Stay out of my hair, and I'll stay out of yours."

*

That honorable resolution lasts Hux until the evening next day. Precisely speaking, until the exact moment he squints into his plate and scoops up a fifteen inch long hair out of his soup. 

"This is disgusting!" he explodes. "Out of the hundreds ways you could go about changing your appearance, you had to end up looking like a member of the Kanjiclub?" 

Kylo is too amused to dissect when and how Hux could've learned what the Kanjiclub men look like. 

"It wasn't a conscious decision. It just…" 

"If you say 'It was the way of the Force' I will set it on fire in your sleep," Hux rages. 

“It just grew,” Kylo interrupts him. “On me,” he adds, smirking. The slam with which Hux’s spoon meets the table feels like a small personal victory. 

“It’s enough that I have to look at it, I don’t want to eat it too! And I shudder to imagine the state of your ‘fresher drain! How can you live like this?”

That's a deeper question than Kylo has the mind to answer over a soup. 

"You're welcome to do something about it if it bothers you so much," he taunts instead. He knows Hux, at least he used to know him, and there's always been a rather insurmountable gap between Hux’s bragging about things he was able to do and actually doing them. 

That’s why it comes as a surprise when Hux leaves the bowl of soup on the table (what a waste, there was nothing  _ wrong _ with it), disappeares into his bedroom and stomps back with determination in his eyes and a straight comb in his hand. 

“Your bed. I don't want the mess in the kitchen,” he motions to Kylo's room. Spellbound, Kylo obeys. The soup isn’t that  _ good _ that he would wage an argument over finishing it first. This promises to be more interesting at least. He sits down, tips his head back and shakes the cascade of his hair over his back. Hux drags in a chair from the table, plops himself on it and surveys the situation. 

It’s not that Kylo ignored his hair completely. He combs his fingers through it when he showers and ties it back to keep it from grease and sparks when he works on the ship’s innards. It’s just that often he forgets to take the tie out for several days. Little neglect like that. For piloting, he needs his hands, his eyes, his gut sense. Not his hair. 

Hux tries an experimental pass of his comb through the thickest part of Kylo’s mane. It snags almost immediately, and Kylo’s head jerks involuntarily at the unexpectedly sharp pain. 

“You sure you want to keep this? It would be easier if I just cut the whole mess off.”

Kylo glances at him over his shoulder. “Sorry. Not exactly feeling like letting you with anything sharp near my throat.”

“If you think I couldn’t kill you with just a comb you’re stupider than I remember you.”

The laugh bubbling out of Kylo’s chest is cut off rather abruptly when Hux forces the comb through a tangle, tearing out a bunch of hair. The pain is the sharpest, most  _ real _ thing Kylo has felt in months, since Exegol, and tears spring into his eyes before he can force them down.

“You’re going to tear my scalp off!”

“Then don’t laugh and  _ hold still _ ,” Hux admonishes him. He works on a different knot now and Kylo realises some abused roots are more sensitive than others. The ones behind his ears are simply hell. 

“It fucking hurts!”

“I was willing to bleed to keep my cover,” Hux says, merciless. “I let them shoot me,  _ twice _ , to make it out of there. And here you are, as baby-faced as if nothing bad ever-”

He cuts himself off, cursing over what might have been the rest of the reproach.  _ As if he didn’t have to drag Kylo through the snow after he got his face cut open with a lightsaber. And now, even the scar is gone.  _

Kylo really owes him. Owes him so much, and has nothing to show for it. So he clamps his mouth shut and squeezes his eyes tight, letting Hux do what he wants. 

The knots and tangles are bad, and Hux is not gentle. At one point, he interrupts his work with more swearing and leaves for a moment, coming back with some kind of dry oil that he pours over the worst matted spots. It smells a little like what Kylo smelled on Hux earlier. Clean and vaguely greenery-like. Kylo can’t tell because his nose is full, tear tracks itching on his face, and his tongue feels too big for his mouth. The tugs at his hair have merged into a constant fire, it's buzzing and burning and blocking out everything else, his skull is tossed around in a fire pit of pain and if feels like it should never stop-

"Kylo? I'm done, you can stop crying."

Was he crying? He isn't aware of it. His mind is… disconnected. Gradually, he’s aware of a smooth, calming sensation of the comb passing freely through his hair. Pleasant little pinpricks where the teeth scratch at his scalp. It all feels like through a layer of cotton balls. The pain is still there, but more like a cushion pulled over his senses, soft and shielding. He’s heavy and floating at the same time, and the light of his bleak bedside lamp is now almost unbearably bright. 

A figure fills his vision, blurred and shining around the edges. Kylo tries to focus. Tries to speak. Can’t manage either.

“Oh shit. Your eyes… Fuck. You’ve bitten through your lip. Wait...”

The figure disappears and panic seeps through the pleasant fog numbing Kylo’s mind. 

“H-Hux?”

“Shhh. Don’t call me that.” A glass, cold and refreshing, is pressed against his lips. He drinks. A few trickles escape down his chin. A towel is passed across his face, warm and soft.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” Hux says. It sounds… unhappy. Remorseful. Kylo wants to cry again. Didn’t he hold out through the pain well enough? Wasn’t he good enough? Hux caresses the side of Ren’s head with his bare hand, and the oversensitive skin reacts with a burst of tiny electric sparks shooting down Kylo’s spine. It’s so  _ good _ , more tears spring out of his eyes and he can’t do anything to stop them. 

“What happened?” he mumbles, leaning into the touch. Everything is so confusing. But Hux is here. Hux always knew what to do. 

“Nothing. Go to sleep, Kylo.”

Hux pushes him to lie down and pulls the blanket over him, and obeying feels like the simplest thing ever. For the first time in two years, Kylo falls asleep without the shadow of the Sith temple at the back of his mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't plan for this. But then, Kylo Ren is an idiot, we've known that for 5 years.


	3. Chapter 3

Hux doesn't come out of his room the next morning before Kylo has to leave for work. To some extent, Kylo welcomes the reprieve. He's not sure what the hell even happened yesterday. Why he'd lost it like a little baby. He couldn't stop crying and it felt _right._ He's embarrassed now, but he's got to give it to Hux when he later catches the sight of himself in the reflection on the transparisteel in the cockpit: his hair looks absolutely fabulous. 

The job is a regular weekly gig that pays well, a supply run for several workshops on the trading posts on the Kaminoan moons. Familiar route, familiar faces at every drop off. The Rodian that helps him unload a couple of crates at his last stop makes a joke, something about sleeping alone or well, and when Kylo tells him it's none of his fucking business the Rodian hoots with laughter and pumps his arms in the universal gesture indicating clearly what he thinks Kylo is going to be doing tonight. 

He couldn't be further from the truth. Kylo could find entertainment if he wanted, he's not that poor that he couldn't afford to buy some and not even that ugly that nobody would go home with him just for the fun of it. But he doesn't need it. He's fine. What occasional cravings he has, his own hand is always enough to deal with it. 

And if, just tonight, he yanks at his own hair as he comes and bites his lip till he can taste blood again, it's nobody's business. 

Especially not Hux's. 

Hux keeps to his own business, too. The former General’s trade seems to be information, a bit ironic considering what got him killed, officially. His comm pad beeps at all times and he often complains about the glacial download speed in this part of town. Kylo doesn't know if he leaves the flat at all, during the hours Kylo is at work. He didn't give Hux a latch key, but that doesn't mean Hux couldn't simply make himself one. He's got the right tools for it, Kylo saw them the first day. 

He expected the rest of Hux’s things take over the place, with the same blasé attitude the man himself took over one of the bedrooms, but there’s nothing. No extra tea cup on the kitchen counter, no razor or another toothbrush in the bathroom… apart from the surge on the electricity meter, there’s nothing to indicate someone else lives here, at all. It shouldn’t disappoint Kylo as much as it does. 

He should’ve known that the universe likes to fulfill his wishes in the most ironic way. 

It’s Primeday, Talita’s mostly-observed day off. Small shops are closed, the harbor is quiet, most of the local fishing boats docked for small repairs. The Saro and Moon company has only one flight scheduled for the afternoon, taxiing a local merchant who wants to pay a visit to his mother living on the fifth planet. Kylo thought that sleeping in would be nice but instead he woke up feeling bleary, aching and hungry. He stumbles into the bathroom with his eyes still half-closed and now he stands there, staring at the assortment of things strewn all over the washbasin, and can’t make the heads or tails of it. 

“Ah. You’re finally up. Um. These are for you. You keep going out looking as if you just rolled out of bed and I’m sick of watching my hard work going to waste.”

Kylo meets Hux’s eyes in the newly installed mirror above the washbasin. His frown must be eloquent because Hux adds, with an unrepentant shrug:

“Couldn’t touch up on my roots without actually seeing what I’m doing. Suck it up.” 

Kylo uncaps and sniffs the bottle of dry oil. That one’s familiar. The brush is new, as well as the hair soap and a set of hair ties. They’re made of dull gleaming metal, patterned like rings, and are rather small. Not one of them would be able to hold Kylo’s hair the way he usually wears it, tied back into a messy bun. Kylo doesn’t know why Hux, ever so practical, would splurge on something Kylo wouldn’t be able to use. 

Turns out Hux has his own idea how those ties should be worn. He makes Kylo sit on the bathtub edge and gives his hair a thorough brushing, and then he oils his hands and fashions in a few braids. Two running back from his temples and one just above his nape. The rest of his hair is free, he can still shake it forward to obscure his face, but the braids are holding the sections of hair where it tends to snag and tangle the most: when he wears welding goggles, working on the ship, or when he pulls up his hood against the rain.

They're a bit looser than a proper braid should be, Hux seemed to go out of his way to spare Kylo any pulling at his scalp. But Kylo doesn't need the mirror to know he's flushed bright red, and there's a lump in his throat and a hot prickly tightness low in his abdomen. 

He can't get up without embarrassing himself, without making it obvious. But for once in his life, Hux doesn't jump on the opportunity to gloat. He just clips on the ties to keep the braids in place, lets out a vaguely satisfied hum and disappears back into his room before Kylo can muster enough courage to meet his eyes again, let alone say something. 

*

It becomes a frustratingly regular occurrence, this Hux’s obsession with Kylo’s hair. He will accost Kylo every morning before he leaves, brush and braid his hair until it’s to his satisfaction, and then goes back into his room as if it’s completely normal. 

As if he doesn’t leave Kylo’s skin tingling in every single spot his fingers accidentally brush against, and a bloody inconvenient erection in his pants. 

And he doesn’t even seem to notice. Or worse - he notices all right, and it’s not his fucking problem. Kylo doesn’t need to ask to know this is the answer he’d get, he can imagine it clearly in Hux’s cutting voice and pretentious accent - and after all, it’s the truth. Kylo can jerk himself off to the memory of Hux’s hands on him, but that’s all that it is, a memory. He’d lost the chance to have the real thing when he’d wrapped his power around Hux’s throat in blind, misdirected anger. 

There were countless ways to become the new Supreme Leader, and Kylo had unerringly chosen the most stupid, most brutal, and most selfish one. Because that’s who he always was. Hux just got sick of it later than most. 

That’s why Kylo doesn’t dare to speak up, tell Hux to either leave him be or fucking follow through with what he’s doing to him. Doesn’t dare to touch Hux, grab him, press him against the wall and make up for the lost years. He’s feeling lucky just to have Hux back in his life, share his evening meal with him, trade a few barbs, breathe the same air. Even if it’s just for a few days. 

The obnoxious Rodian whistles when he sees him on the next supply run. “Really nice, Kane. Guess it doesn’t get in the way so much, tied like this, heh?” Kylo tells him where he can stick it. It only makes him laugh harder. 

“Man, that must be a great lay,” he says the next week.

“Kane, you bastard, I never thought I’d live to see this but you got yourself a keeper!” is what he comes up the week after that. 

That’s when Kylo realizes. Hux has been staying at his place for weeks now. He didn’t even notice how the time flew, when before every day would drag slow and heavy like a stone thrown into a grave. 

Weeks, and he doesn’t even know the man’s new name. 

That night after work, he drops by at the local library café. They serve rainwater dregs but their holonet speed is better than in the rest of the town, and they have several popular news channels, press agencies and official news outlets on their feed. He checks the recent bounty listings, and the official New Republic (mostly toothless) police’s most wanted list too, for good measure. He run several searches and looks at every picture of a “human, male, tall” they have in the database.

Nothing. But then, a lot of the listings doesn’t have a picture attached. On his way home, he buys a box of the dehydrated beans, as a subconscious apology.

Hux sits on the small stool in the hallway just by the door when Kylo comes home, legs crossed casually and one hand hanging loose above the pocket where he keeps his small, customized blaster. 

“You’re late.” He sounds irritated.

Kylo glances at the chrono. His impromptu detour to snoop had taken more than he expected. It’s several hours later than when he usually gets home at this day of the week. 

Was Hux really concerned about him, or merely nervous that whoever got Kylo would be coming for him next? 

“I have a life,” he scowls. 

“You could've fooled me,” Hux sneers back. 

All the tentative inkling for goodwill Kylo felt earlier leaves him on a poof. How can Hux still get under his skin so easily? Why does he even tolerate it? He tosses the box of caf beans at Hux and goes to fix himself some dinner, not keen on hashing out a _domestic_ scene with a man who doesn’t even _live_ with him, just coexists like a nameless ghost. 

Hux follows him, unrelenting like the stench of all the bad decisions Kylo ever made in his life. 

“Do you know these taste like crushed bird poop,” he rattles the box. 

Kylo grabs a packet of instant bread from the cupboard. There are only two left in the box, when normally he’d be good for another week and a half. Great. Nameless, eating him out of home, _choosing beggar_ ghost. 

“What were you doing in that café, anyway? You don’t drink caf.” 

"Take a guess, Mr. Don't-call-me-Hux."

Hux rolls his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. You don't need my name. Or do you want something up-to-date to moan when you get yourself off?" 

Kylo slams the bowl on the counter so hard half of the contents spill out. He wasn't so hungry anyway. 

"You're such a bastard."

"Please, do try to be original."

"What do you want?!" Kylo rounds on him. He feels the rage surging but it's not what it used to be, not since he dissipated and bleached all his emotions to keep himself from accessing the Force. It's a shallow, impotent fury, but it's all he can feel on his own. Hux did make him feel razor sharp and bone deep, but Hux hid from talking about it afterwards and obviously has no interest in doing it again. 

But it still feels good, justified, to get at least a little angry. 

"You don't want me, fine! Is it just my hair? Is that your new plaything? You know what? I'm sick of it!" Kylo grabs a knife from the kitchen counter - and Hux takes a step back. 

But Kylo has no intention to throw it at him. With his free hand, he tries to gather as much hair at the back of his head as possible, and puts the knife to it. The edge is dull but it'll do the job. He’ll cut it off and then there’ll be no more reason for Hux to stay-

"It's Fulcrum."

The knife slips in his hold. What did Hux just say? Kylo must have overheard. There’s no way that Hux is... 

Fulcrum, the revered spy code name from the Rebellion era. Ben’s favorite bedtime stories were the adventures of Fulcrum. Shortly after Exegol, back when Kylo was still careful about hiding, he'd heard the whispers. That Fulcrum had resurfaced, supplying the New Republic government with all kinds of useful information. Stormtrooper training facilities. Secret First Order labor camps locations. First Order loyal shipyards, refineries and reclam stations. Old Imperial officers hiding places. 

Fulcrum is single handedly ruining every hope the last of the Imperials had for mustering up a return, or at least ensuring their survival. A lot of wealthy, influential people want him dead. 

The shock on Kylo’s face only hardens the determination in Hux’s. There’s the fanatic light in his eyes Kylo used to know, only this time it’s turned the opposite way. 

“I'm disassembling the whole organization. If I can't have my Order, nobody's going to. I'm bringing it all to dust.”

Kylo doesn’t understand. Or rather, he does, except this kind of attitude used to be his own. If he couldn’t be the most powerful Jedi, he’d just kill them all. Hux wasn’t like that. 

“I thought you’d want your power back… the Order was your whole life.”

“So I should just let other people ruin it for me? I'm not you, Ben, Kylo, or whatever you'll be named the next time you fuck up everything and escape the consequences. I won't be a victim of whatever visions or prophecies or legacies. They thought they could steal my life’s work from me and claim it as their own? Well, fuck them. I’ll be the last one standing.” 

He walks forward, voice rising, until he's straight in Kylo's face, and then he plucks the knife from Kylo's numb fingers before he can react. 

“If I wanted for things to go back to how they were, I'd start by putting the scar back on your face,” Hux hisses, and there's a pinch of a knife edge at the skin just under Kylo’s eye. Kylo doesn't dare move. He’s barely breathing. 

“If I wanted retribution, I'd take your eye for my Starkiller. I'd carve your fucking liver out of your body so you would know how that felt, watching it burn because of your stupidity. But I’m not doing that. Because there's no fucking point. It's. All. Gone.” 

The last word resounds on a sharp _thwack_ as Hux drives the knife into the kitchen counter next to Kylo’s hip. It’s stuck there, still vibrating, as he steps back again. Putting distance between them. His voice grows quieter, lower, almost ashamed. 

"I went to Chandrilla, you know. I visited your grave. As a final fuck you, I don't know. It felt hollow. We ended way before that. You chose the Jedi girl over me, I betrayed you. And then you died.”

Kylo draws in a shaky breath. Unsticks the knife from the wooden countertop and returns it into the holder. 

“I kind of know how that feels, you know.” That futile hollowness of the death he inflicted on that unfortunate messenger and everyone he killed after Hux died. They just didn’t matter anymore. 

Hux laughs. It sounds a little unstable. “And then - I find you again, and you trust me. Trust - me! As if nothing happened!” He lifts his hand, as if wanting to touch the scar the way he used to, back when it was still there-

“You shouldn't trust me,” he says bitterly. “I wanted to kill you, I drew a blaster at you when you lay there, after you killed Snoke. I wanted that girl to kill you. If push ever comes to shove, I will betray you ag-” 

The kiss cuts the rest of the words off his lips, and Kylo swallows the surprised noise and kisses harder, pressing into that familiar heat, even biting a little just to keep Hux from pulling away. He must be insane for doing this, their whole past is just one big open wound, with so much anger between them, they’re both lit fuses just waiting to go off. They had held each other at gun or knifepoint more times than Kylo can count, and if Hux knows what’s good for him he should be absolutely pulling away. But he isn’t, he’s holding on and kissing back, and Kylo gathers him closer and lets himself be pulled closer in turn, Hux’s hands gripping his hair, and it’s better than he remembers, better than he imagined, it’s _everything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh, guess what. Chapter count went up because I'm squire and this is what squire does every damn time. I'm sorry guys.


	4. Chapter 4

Kylo doesn’t break the kiss until he absolutely has to breathe. Bright colorful spots dance at the edges of his vision. The green of Hux’s eyes is swallowed by black. 

“Were you even listening to me?!” Hux huffs. His lips are kiss-swollen and red. 

He looks incensed. And he also looks hungry. Kylo is finally starting to realise that he should pay less attention to Hux’s vitriolic words and more to the way he’s all but clinging to him. One hand curled around his back and fingers splayed, digging into the flesh, another hand tangled in Kylo’s hair, holding him as close as possible. Desperate not to let go.

Kylo grins. “ _ You _ moved in with me.” The realisation lights up in his brain, slotting into place like a piece of a puzzle. Hux may be surprised by Kylo’s acceptance but he wants it. Wants it very badly. 

Hux’s mouth rasps against the beginning of a stubble under Kylo’s ear. “Temporarily. I expected you to kick me out three days in.”

“Hmm, not happening. You’re in to stay.”

Kylo slides his hand from Hux’s face to his shoulder, arm, skimming along the many layers covering his upper body and finally coming to rest on Hux’s hip. He squeezes it and sneaks his fingers lower, tracing the curve of Hux’s buttock through his pants. The demanding grip of Hux’s hand in his hair stings, he feels him nod against his shoulder, and that’s all the assurance Kylo needs for now. 

"Let me," he pleads. "Let me touch you. Taste you. I want to see you." He sounds desperate, babbling. He doesn't care. 

"My bedroom," Hux commands. "I'm not risking your pillows covered in hair. Disgusting."

Kylo hooks both his hands under Hux's ass and hitches him up. Hux scowls but his legs still wrap around Kylo's waist like a greedy, carnivorous flower. Muscle memory. Kylo’s skin is burning everywhere Hux touches him, even through his clothes. He needs to get out of them, now. 

"You like my hair." Kylo navigates blindly, with Hux in his arms intent on sucking his soul out of him through his mouth. 

"Not between my teeth," Hux retorts and then yelps as he's tossed on the bed, Kylo wasting no time pulling off his own tunic, the shock of cold air a momentary relief on his overheated skin, and buries his face between Hux's spread thighs. 

“Stars,” Hux hisses, “have you no - oh  _ fuck _ \- shame-” but his hips are lifting up from the bed all the same, rubbing his hard cock against Kylo’s face through the layers of fabric and making it easier for Kylo to rip his pants open and pull them down. He smells so  _ good _ , clean and just a little bit sharp with sweat, and Kylo wants to drink it in, coax out the sweetness of arousal and make it everything he can smell for days. 

Hux’s shorts go next, there’s a sound of a ripped seam that neither of them pays any attention to, and finally Kylo can see-

“That’s not fair,” he groans when he encounters nothing but a smoothly shaved skin. Above him, Hux pulls his arm away from his eyes and lifts his head to glare. 

“What? Did you think I’d be bleaching my fucking pubes?” 

“I liked them red,” Kylo mumbles, earning himself an exasperated eye roll. 

“Right, because the carpet not matching the drapes wouldn’t be suspicious at all-”

The rest of the rebuke is lost on a moan as Kylo wraps his lips and tongue around Hux's cock and slides down until his throat spasms. He forces down a cough, it's been  _ years,  _ his eyes are tearing up and he feels lightheaded but he'd be damned if he stops now when he’s finally got what he wanted. He swallows, eases off, takes a sharp breath through his nose and dives right back. 

His hair falls forward over his eyes as he bobs his head. He hears Hux mutter something over the blood rushing in his ears and then Hux’s hips are shifting, he’s lifting himself up on one elbow and smoothing Kylo’s hair back, holding the mass of it so it wouldn’t get in the way. He wants to see. 

Kylo meets his eyes, bright in his flushed face, wild and still a little disbelieving, and seeing the effect he has on his usually stiff-lipped lover has him pulling off to catch his breath, spreading his knees and rutting against the mattress to relieve the tension in his pants. 

“Oh no, you don’t,” Hux pants and that's the only warning Kylo gets before the grip on his hair tightens and his mouth is guided back down, Hux’s hips bucking up to meet it. And again, and again, Hux watching with his bottom lip caught between his teeth as his cock fucks Kylo’s mouth and it’s almost too much, the pace, the pressure, the sharp pain in his scalp - Kylo feels the first sting of tears in the corners of his eyes and it’s  _ good _ . He feels himself slipping into that place where everything feels  _ right _ and he closes his eyes, riding out the sensations. His scalp burns, his jaw aches, his throat is raw and it’s so good he could cry. 

“Shhhh, look at me,” Hux whispers above him. The cruel grip on Kylo’s hair suddenly disappears and there’s a gentle touch on his face. Fingers trace the smooth cheekbone, the strained circle of his lips, and finally cup the underside of his jaw and brush against his throat. Kylo looks up and it takes a moment for his eyes to focus. Hux is staring at him with awe, feeling his cock in Kylo’s throat from the outside. The touch and the expression on his face so soft, so unlike his previous treatment that something deeper than simple pleasure twists in Kylo’s chest and he moans, helpless and lost. Hux’s mouth drops open, his cock twitches in Kylo’s mouth and without warning, hot salty come floods the back of his tongue. Hux drives himself deep on a last desperate thrust and a loud groan, and forces Kylo’s mouth down until all Kylo can feel is the silky skin of Hux’s balls under his chin and the taste of him, inside and out. He swallows and then the whole world goes kind of grey and swimmy. 

When he next blinks his eyes open, he’s in Hux’s arms and tiny impatient kiss-lick-bites are peppered all over his face. 

“Idiot,” Hux says, and it sounds fond. “You forgot to breathe. Do I have to do everything for you?” 

Kylo’s mind is hazy and floating. He wouldn’t say no to staying like this forever but there’s also a couple of nagging things - the front of his pants absolutely soaked through with precome and chafing at his hard and aching cock. He needs to come, he’s been aroused for weeks-

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hux swats away Kylo’s hand that moved towards his fly seemingly on its own volition. Kylo groans in frustration. 

“You can’t still be mad at me.”

Hux elbows him in the ribs none too gently to make him sit up and starts working on the ties and buckles holding his jacket together. 

“I’ll never be not mad at you,” he informs him dryly. “But I can work around that. And right now I want to fuck you so thoroughly you forget your own name, and stop pestering me for mine.”

The words are haughty and dismissive but Kylo sees the way Hux is looking at him, possessive and still hungry despite having just come. He looks past the prickly attitude and sees the man who moaned for him just a few minutes ago, and yes. He can work around that, too. 

Besides, he doesn’t need to pester Hux for his new name anymore. There’s one right here, free for the taking. Armitage Moon doesn’t sound half bad, and even without the Force, Kylo has a feeling that Hux will agree. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, they still have to work out how to function as human beings in a relationship. But given the average Star Wars lifespan, they have plenty of decades to do that.

**Author's Note:**

> For more of Kylux hell come to my [blog](https://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/) or my [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/SquiresBella).


End file.
